Re: A & E proposal

I agree. It may not start out as disease - but it certainly becomes one, so I can sympathize with you, Wrinkly.

My parents were both heavy drinkers and it had different effects on both of them. Dad would become merry then suddenly fall asleep. He was never violent or objectionable.

Mother, on the hand, became maudlin. She blamed everyone but herself for all the things that had gone in her life. She became thoroughly nasty and violent. After my father died I watched my mother spiral further and further into into alcoholism and nothing anyone said or did could stop her. She said that she drank because she was depressed - unfortunately alcohol is itself a depressive so she was caught in a vicious circle. I took over doing her shopping and refused to buy booze - so she used to bribe her neighbours to buy it for her. She was in 'sheltered' accommodation but the warden only visited once a month unless anyone was ill and mother always managed to be reasonably sober when she called. Social Services used all kinds of emotional blackmail to try and make me take her to live with me - but - I was still working then and would not have trusted her in my house alone - plus the fact that she and I did not like each other at all. It would never have worked. Her GP was no help at all. The hospital staff did what they could whenever she fell over and broke her bones - wrist, femur, shoulder blade, collar bone - all in 12 months, but she would not see anyone from AA. The ones who helped me the most were a group called 'AL-ANON'. They are a support group for friends/relatives who are having to deal with an alcoholic. The last time I saw her alive she was sitting on her bed drinking neat gin and eating paracetamol tablets to cure her headache.

The ones who used to end up in our A&E on Friday/Saturday nights were not so much the long term alcoholic but the binge drinkers, hen/stag party goers who couldn't handle their drinks, and those who mixed drink and drugs with alarming results. They used to cause absolute havoc!

Re: A & E proposal

Very true !

I like a drink, usually wine with a meal - but - I have learned to treat it with respect (see my previous post).

Re: A & E proposal

I read your previous post and it is correct in that you say depression pays its part and drinking to excess, of course is likely to add to that.
The last paragraph I absolutely agree with too .......